Posted on October 10, 2025 by Rabbi Noah Diamondstein
Dear Temple Beth-El,
This Shabbat is our final Shabbat of this past year’s Torah reading cycle, and would otherwise have been the Shabbat on which we read from V’zot Hab’rachah, the very last parashah in our Torah that details the blessings Moses gave the tribes and then his ultimate passing as he looked out into the Promised Land he would never himself get to enter. We will not read that parashah, however, because this Shabbat falls during the middle days of our week of Sukkot.
Sukkot is a wonderful holiday that centers experiences in family and community. We gather around the table in our hut, through the roof of which we can see the night sky, and give thanks for the blessings in our lives–blessings that, like our very lives, we acknowledge as temporary, ephemeral, and fragile. We give thanks for what we have, knowing that there are so many who have less and who live lives of fragility, exposed to the elements both literally and figuratively, every day.
We observed the start of Chag Sukkot together on Erev Sukkot, which was a delightful gathering, and we will mark the end of the holiday next Monday night and Tuesday as we gather for Simchat Torah and Shmini Atzeret (more). I wanted to lift up these intervening days, though, to teach you a special secret code that we get to use twice a year.
The middle days of Sukkot are called “Chol HaMo-eid,” which translates to the “regular days amid the appointed time.” It is still Sukkot all week long, but it’s only a Festival Day on the first and final days of our observance. In between, it remains a festival, but we can still go to work and live our lives more or less as normal (apart from adding Hallel to your service if you’re a weekday davener).
During these days, there is a special greeting we get to use! On Chol HaMo-eid, we can greet each other with the words, “Moadim l’simcha!” which means: “May this special time be joyous!” and if you’re greeted that way, you would respond: “Chagim uzmanim l’sason!” which means: “Holidays and times like these are meant for joy!” It’s sort of like one person saying: “Happy holiday!” and the other saying with a smile, “Isn’t it though?”
The world is a hard and harsh place, and the themes of Sukkot remind us of that. But this Chag Ha’asif, this Festival of Ingathering as we call it in our tradition, is also a reminder of the joys of being together and the importance of celebrating the miracles and blessings in our lives. We even have a special secret code to help us do it.
Shabbat shalom and moadim l’simcha,
Rabbi Noah Diamondstein
